Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage at CES on Sunday evening to unveil, among other things, the company's next-generation tablet chip: the Tegra 4.

By Huang's own admission, the chip is one of the company's "worst-kept secrets," and the core specifications are basically identical to those that were leaked last month: four Cortex-A15 CPU cores (along with an additional low-power companion core, which switches on when the tablet is idle to save power) take care of the CPU side, while 72 GeForce GPU cores boost graphics performance over Tegra 3.

In a side-by-side webpage loading test with Google's Nexus 10 (the current reigning champion of Android tablet performance) a Tegra 4-based prototype loaded a set of webpages nearly twice as quickly: 27 seconds compared to 50 seconds. It's worth noting that the Tegra tablet appeared to be running the stock Android browser, however, while the Nexus 10 was running Google Chrome—the latter browser has proven to have slightly lower benchmarking scores, so take these results with a grain of salt.

The chip will also include a separate 4G LTE modem of Nvidia's design, the i500 soft modem, which begins sampling to partners this month. Current cellular chips use fixed-function parts to enable certain technologies (3G, 4G, and so on). Nvidia's software-programmable approach allows each of the i500's eight multi-purpose processors to perform different functions as needed: the same silicon can provide support for multiple wireless technologies, which greatly cuts down on the amount of silicon needed to provide phones and tablets with the different connectivity options they need. This modem is the first fruit of Nvidia's 2011 purchase of Icera Semiconductor.

In particular, Nvidia played up the new Tegra chip's photo processing capabilities. By placing the CPU "closer to the imaging pipeline," Huang promised that Tegra 4-based devices would be capable of real-time HDR photography and video shooting, fixing the exposure problems that so often trip up mobile devices.

Tegra 4's sheer size and power requirements mean that it's probably not destined for smartphones. That market will most likely fall to Nvidia's next smartphone chip, codenamed "Grey," which is also rumored to include an integrated LTE modem like the i500, though Huang didn't discuss this chip on stage at Nvidia's CES event. This will help Nvidia catch up to competitors like Qualcomm, who are already shipping SoCs with integrated LTE modems.

We'll be talking with Nvidia more later this week and will keep you posted with any new details we learn.

World's fastest until Apple introduces their own chip, which they will then claim to be the fastest, and the cycle repeats. And so the cycle of who's who in the fastest chip competition continues... But seriously, this is still good news for those Android users who complain that their tablet isn't fast enough compared to an iPad, simply because raw horsepower is being shoved at the operating system in Android. It remains to be seen what Apple's response is though... we can only imagine semi-soon if history is anything to go by.

If Apple can put up something competitive (and they may well, they've been gathering a lot of talent in that direction) then we may see a revival of the chip wars. In a battle for better performance between giants, the customers win.

Ah, dear... this is what I wish the Surface RT had. Didn't buy one, mind you, but that's not the point. Of course, if this makes the current Tegra 3 Windows RT tablets go down in price? I might have to go for it

Is this even a tablet part with 4 A-15s? What's the power requirement of this thing? My (albeit limited) understanding of A-15 tells me you're gonna need a big battery or gonna want a wall socket nearby.

Looks to be impressive. Can't wait for some products to come to market with these new chips so we can see some actual independent benchmarks.

Exactly, was bought into their whole Tegra 2 hype, only to realize that it's just a so-so chip and the only place that it truely excelled at was the marketing arm. Will wait and see if this one live up to its hype.

But from their own graph, their 4-cores A15 chipset is only somewhat better than Apple's A6x, if this is not due to the inefficiency of multi-cores in webpage loading, then I afraid this will be another market-heavy, performance-light chip from NVida (but can't blame them for being inconsistent :-/).

The soft modem is what actually has me most curious. Does this mean it'd be trivial to support multiple carriers? It sounds like software defined radio, but I feel like I'm missing something. If I'm not, this is a big deal... right?

The soft modem is what actually has me most curious. Does this mean it'd be trivial to support multiple carriers?

I think that problem is on the analog side, so it can't be fixed by reconfiguring the baseband. AnandTech had an article on this topic the other day; it sounds like you need separate analog front ends (= extra cost) for each band plus switches that degrade the signal.

The soft modem is what actually has me most curious. Does this mean it'd be trivial to support multiple carriers? It sounds like software defined radio, but I feel like I'm missing something. If I'm not, this is a big deal... right?

In my anecdotal experience with the Nexus 10, Chrome is SIGNIFICANTLY slower loading and rendering webpages than the stock browser. Methinks that NVidia knew that this would tangibly effect the outcome, so they set it up that way to tilt the scale as far into the Tegra 4's corner as possible.

I don't have much doubt that the Tegra 4 will be "faster" in many ways, but I'm very dubious about the amount until there are some additional hands on accounts/hard numbers from benchmarking.

I bet it would be faster, too, if Google had a competitive browser on mobile right now. It's 5 versions behind the desktop one, and I know the same processor in Nexus 10 is much faster under the ARM Chromebook.

They said they will fix it soon, though, but probably not until Android 5.0 and Google I/O in May. Until then the chips will look weaker than they really are (which also means they should get faster in browsing, when Google catches up with Chrome for Android).

I think the biggest news is Project Shield, Nvidia's handheld gaming system that plays android games and can stream games from appropriately equipped computers. There was nothing said about Tegra 4 that wasn't leaked before.

So which devices are using Tegra 4, aside from the nvidia ones? When can we expect some to be shipping?

Some of the chart graphs that had the iPad 4 in them looked a bit, well, not dissapointing, but showing a curiously small (theoretical) performance advantage. Is Tegra 4 going to be able to stay on or near the top if Apple ships an upgraded AX core this summer? Lots of the info only has Q1 2013 or Q3 2013 as release dates, with no real info on actual shipping devices. If these only come out by the end of 2013, they will have a harder crop of devices to compete against than the ones in the graphs (Apple’s CPUs, Samsung’s, etc), no?

Can we please stop comparing future products (only now being released to OEMs, and perhaps available for purchase in six months' time) to current products that are already on the market? In the context of Moore's Law, it's quite unremarkable that Nvidia's future products beat what the market is currently offering for sale. I'd prefer to see a line-up of various products projected benchmarks, in the context of a realistic time-line for product release...

The i500 modem is a fantastic idea. I can't help but wonder which design (ASIC or software-defined modem on smaller silicon die) will consume less power... It's not possible to guess based on information I've seen. Is Nvidia making any claims about this? The link through to the 2011 article on the Icera purchase is really interesting:

Quote:

Unlike Qualcomm and Infineon, however, Icera specializes in software defined radios. Icera's silicon consists of optimized, low-power processors that can be changed to operate with different radio technologies by changing the software that runs on it.

If Nvidia can use their technology to concurrently reduce manufacturing costs, increase performance, reduce power consumption and increase hardware adaptability; this will be a very good thing. I do wonder though, to what degree this new hardware will disrupt the traditional product cycle (where consumers eventually purchase new hardware so as to use newer radio technologies); or to what degree the product cycle will be perpetuated by deliberate software obsolescence (forcing consumers to purchase expensive new hardware by refusing to update the radio software). These potential developments open up a lot of other interesting questions...

"Tegra 4's sheer size and power requirements mean that it's probably not destined for smartphones."

Should you, I don't know, touch on these subjects before slapping that conclusion into our faces?The only thing I have read in that area is that Tegra4 will use 45% less power than Tegra3. I thought that was good for smartphones.

Exactly, was bought into their whole Tegra 2 hype, only to realize that it's just a so-so chip and the only place that it truely excelled at was the marketing arm.

You're not the only one. The one thing that really hurt Tegra 2 was the total lack of NEON - instruction set, something that was a really bone-headed decision on NVIDIA's part. I have an Acer Iconia A500 - 10" tablet that is otherwise perfectly useable and all, but the Tegra 2 chipset in it feels terribly slow compared to any other similarly-clocked dual-core SoC and the thing really suffers in any multimedia-related situation.

Next time I'm gonna be a lot, lot more careful about going for NVIDIA SoCs.

"Tegra 4's sheer size and power requirements mean that it's probably not destined for smartphones."

Should you, I don't know, touch on these subjects before slapping that conclusion into our faces?The only thing I have read in that area is that Tegra4 will use 45% less power than Tegra3. I thought that was good for smartphones.

Seems doubtful they would develop a chip (after the success of the tegra 3) that COULDN'T be used for phones.

"Tegra 4's sheer size and power requirements mean that it's probably not destined for smartphones."

Should you, I don't know, touch on these subjects before slapping that conclusion into our faces?The only thing I have read in that area is that Tegra4 will use 45% less power than Tegra3. I thought that was good for smartphones.

Seems doubtful they would develop a chip (after the success of the tegra 3) that COULDN'T be used for phones.

There's no doubt Tegra 4 can be used for phones. Just lower the clock rate and maybe turn off a core or two and it's good to go.

Of course then it won't supposedly beat iPad 4 in some fake benchmark.

Are the central burning question. It's impossible to judge the quality of this iteration until we have some idea of the performance per watt. Apple's engineers aren't sitting around doing nothing, will this chip still be a leader when it finally appears in devices?

The soft modem does sound very interesting, but the lack of critical estimates of power draw makes it sound like this is still very much a prototype.

Uh, no. You can't compare core counts and clock speeds directly. Ivy Bridge has more transistors to throw at the problem and as such higher instructions per clock. Cortex A15 designs are only beating out Atom processors at times, forget about Core series processors.

Some of the chart graphs that had the iPad 4 in them looked a bit, well, not dissapointing, but showing a curiously small (theoretical) performance advantage. Is Tegra 4 going to be able to stay on or near the top if Apple ships an upgraded AX core this summer? Lots of the info only has Q1 2013 or Q3 2013 as release dates, with no real info on actual shipping devices. If these only come out by the end of 2013, they will have a harder crop of devices to compete against than the ones in the graphs (Apple’s CPUs, Samsung’s, etc), no?

That chart showed web browsing performance, not something that traditionally has scaled well to four cores. If Apple sticks to dual core designs they may get ahead in that particular test, and anything that uses four cores well will likely be better on T4, unless Apple somehow makes each core over twice as fast as an A15 which isn't likely.

Tegra4 appears to be the first "real" (to be available on the market) LTE competitor to Qualcomm's offering, which is good, as it will lower the prices down. Right now the prices for an LTE USB stick are just excessive, easily above $100.

The technology in itself is quite cool, it can be seen as a mix between the flexibility of an FPGA and the programmability of a DSP, with a VLIW architecture that's rather unique. It's in fact a software-defined radio. There is a lot of secrecy around it but this presentation is a good introduction: http://www.iet-cambridge.org.uk/arc/sem ... nowles.pdf

Any word on anything coming out soon with a full-fledged Tegra 4? I imagine there will be stripped-down (2 A15s, instead of 4, etc) versions. Is there a companion (A7?) core for each A15? I also wonder, is there going to be dedicated VRAM for the GPU cores? Or is it going to be shared by whatever RAM type/amount goes into main RAM for the tablet?

Any word on anything coming out soon with a full-fledged Tegra 4? I imagine there will be stripped-down (2 A15s, instead of 4, etc) versions. Is there a companion (A7?) core for each A15? I also wonder, is there going to be dedicated VRAM for the GPU cores? Or is it going to be shared by whatever RAM type/amount goes into main RAM for the tablet?

The companion core is also an A15, although presumably on low power optimized silicon, so running at a much lower clock rate. There is not a companion core for each A15 core, that would be pointless, there is one low power companion core. No dedicated Vram.

The companion core is also an A15, although presumably on low power optimized silicon, so running at a much lower clock rate. There is not a companion core for each A15 core, that would be pointless, there is one low power companion core. No dedicated Vram.

Do you happen to have a source, or was there a technical press release I missed? I'm assuming the leaked specs and the speculation for the A15s-with-A7/9 companion cores was wrong, then?

The companion core is also an A15, although presumably on low power optimized silicon, so running at a much lower clock rate. There is not a companion core for each A15 core, that would be pointless, there is one low power companion core. No dedicated Vram.

Do you happen to have a source, or was there a technical press release I missed? I'm assuming the leaked specs and the speculation for the A15s-with-A7/9 companion cores was wrong, then?

Nvidia themselves said it was a 4+1 core again, not a 4+4. And you can see 5 in the picture. Think about it, the fifth core is meant to save power when the system is idling, why would they have 4 of them?

Nvidia themselves said it was a 4+1 core again, not a 4+4. And you can see 5 in the picture. Think about it, the fifth core is meant to save power when the system is idling, why would they have 4 of them?

That's a good question, I've no idea why I thought it would be 4+4, I thought at most it would be 4 A15s + 2 A7s tops. But I see that makes a hell of a lot more sense!

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.